Number of words book length nonfiction

In fiction, a short book is between 50,000 to 80,000 words roughly 200 300 pages in paperback. Nonfiction picture book 3,000 words max, but closer to 1,000 to 2,000 words. Obviously, my point is not that you should submit a first book of anywhere near. For fiction, i recommend 5,000 words or more for short stories. Neither too long nor too short, this book length signals a novelists competency and knowledge of the publishing market to prospective agents and editors. Many of the misconceptions on the ideal booklength are leftover from outdated publishing industry standards. As always, be sure to keep it interesting so you can justify the word length. The average wordcount for adult fiction is between 70,000 to 120,000 words. The perennial favorite by gary chapman, the five love languages 1995, comes in at only 46,145 words. Better to have solid, clear information than rambling to make a page count. At a writers conference i recently attended, publishing veteran jane friedman said 80,000 words is good for most fiction, below 60,000 isnt novel length territory, and above 120,000 is likely too much. Classification word count novel over 40,000 words novella 17,500 to 40,000 words novelette 7,500 to 17,500 words short story under 7,500 words. In years past, a thick book spine was the advertisement for the title on a bookstore shelf.

Long book length at the other end of the spectrum a book of 80,000 to 100,000 words has significant heft, 320400 pages. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different places and divide by 10 to get the average wordsperline. And man, people love to point out exceptionsand they always will. This is a story that is between 10,000 and 40,000 words. Conversely, when we write epiclength chapters 10,000 words long, theres nowhere to pause. Check that the book actually starts on page 1 sometimes the stuff before it starts is counted then go to the last page before any. Your chapter structure needs to be in proportion to the overall length of the book. How to write a book chapter in 7 simple steps for your. This translates into just 20,000 to 25,000 words for a 100 page book, 30,000 to 42,500 words for a 150page book, perhaps just 40,000 words for a 200page book. I just popped into my office and pulled a few books off the shelf. Standard nonfiction business, political science, psychology, history, etc. This latter tends to be priced at the 100 page mark so preferred lengths tend to come in. No more than 90,000 words seems to be the editors mantra these days.

Generally, 50,000 would be considered the minimum word count, and ideally a novel should be over 70,000 words. To help you cast this vision, let me tell you that most standard 192page paperback books are about 40,000 to 50,000 words. A minimum count for a nonfiction ebook is about 10,000 words, as long as the content is solid. By most peoples standards, 40,000 words would be pretty short for a novel. A young adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Amazon ebook page length by genre kindle page length. A nonfiction book attractive to publishers of bestsellers starts at around 75,000 words. Literary agent paula munier says a 90,000 word count is the sweet spot for debut fiction. In fact, the average nonfiction book on amazon is 10,000 words, which translates to 80 pages. The first alone has sold more than 120 million copies, and the rest have sold at least 65 million each. If you analyse the contents of a typical bookshelf in an academic library, you will notice that many of the books are between 272 and 320 pages in length. Nonfiction book 25,000 150,000 words fiction novella 18,00040,000.

So 50,000 words is the minimum for a nonfiction book. Personally, i recommend at least 10,000 words for nonfiction, unless you can do it justice in less. According to chuck sambuchino see below for word count. What is the ideal word count for a nonfiction book in the. Harry potter and the halfblood prince 168,000 words. The most important thing here is to realize that there are always exceptions to these rules. Simply divide the total word count from your word document by the number of words per page.

Now that you know the average number of words per page in your book, you can calculate the page count with a little arithmetic. Onethird of the novels that come into the agency are rejected because theyre too long or short, perkins says. Number of words should be visible in amazon for books details. It is the responsibility of the author to cast the vision for the book and project a word count and finished length. You dont want to overwrite and be forced to use a teeny font. The harry potter books are young adult titles, and ya publishers generally look for manuscripts in the 50,000 to 80,000 word range. With this logic, the number of words in a nonfiction book chapter is about 3,500 words to 5,000 words. And, keeping your chapters short creates a good balance between content and action, and fits with this model of short actionable content.

The average nonfiction book is about 50,000 to 75,000 words, which is about 153 to 230 ebook pages. Your guide to book word counts fiction and nonfiction. It is feasible to count the number of words in a published chapter. For a compilation of short stories, i would shoot for at. On the upper end, a novel over 110,000 words is considered an epic. Most traditional publishers will place restrictions on an author and require that the manuscript not exceed a specified word count, unless special concessions are made. Harry potter and the deathly hallows 198,000 words. By 2017, however, that number has dropped to 273 pages. My coach would tell me to stand at the back line to volley or approach the net, but never to float in between the areas, because. Generally speaking, traditional publishers expect completed nonfiction book manuscripts to be between 50,000 to 75,000 words. On average there are 233 words per page for a nonfiction book and 280 words per page for a fiction book on amazon.

Elizabeth said, for nonfiction books, it depends on the kind of book. If you take the advice on book length, then a 50,000 word book might. Kindle publishing faq tck publishing book publisher. Although science fiction and some other kinds were now invasive and can exceed 400 pages 200,000 words. The science fiction and fantasy writers of america specifies word lengths for each category of its nebula award categories. It makes quite a difference whether you want to publish a childrens picture book, a 50recipe smoothie book, a science fiction novel or a technical encyclopedia. In my opinion, if your nonfiction book is fewer than about 30,000 words 120 pages, it does not feel substantial enough to be real book. If you still want to write your nonfiction book before you retain an agent or publisher, word count can vary greatly, but a good target for a business nonfiction book is 70,00080,000 words. How many words should be in an adult nonfiction book. The golden extent for many publishers is 288 pages about 90 100,000 words without tables or figures. In terms of adult mainstream fiction, that length would be considered a novella. However sometimes, like today, the reverse happens.

And dont forget to calculate what your word count will be. Under 500 words can be described as flash fiction between and 8000 words is a short story also, most short story competitions will stipulate their required word length for entry between 5000 and 10,000 words is a long short story. Like novels, these books fall into the 70,000 to 120,000word range. Perkins agency in new york says its much easier to market a firsttime novelists book if the word count falls between 80,000 and 100,000 words, or roughly 300 doublespaced, typed pagesthe average novel length. Calculate the number of pages using your current word count and the appropriate formula below, calculate the number of pages you can expect in your finished book. In 2011, the lists average length peaked at 467 pages. Sketch out your outline, make sure your structure works, and then start coming up with more clever titles for the chapters and parts, if you use those. Minimum realistic word count of nonfiction book writing stack. This trim size is good for only 200 to 250 words per printed book page. Virtually every book i try to shop by a debut author thats any longer than thatregardless of categoryreceives the same response from editors. That should give you about 200250 pages in a final manuscript. This is a list of the novels over 500,000 words published through a mainstream publisher.

If your manuscript is on the short side, make this clear when pitching to a publisher and give solid. And no agents or publishers would even look past that number. You want 50,000 to 85,000 words for a fulllength selfhelp book, half that for a selfpublished ebook. Look at the books that sell well, and are in competition with yours. If youre working on a novellength book, aim for 50,000 words at the very least. If you stick to these when youre writing your nonfiction book, youll be fine. According to amazons great text stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words. The average number of words in a nonfiction book is around 50,00070,000 words, and the average number of chapters in a nonfiction book are about 1020. He wrote, the number of ebook singles any ebook between 5,000 and 30,000 words in length published in the third quarter increased a whopping 27 percent compared to the second quarter of 20. While this number of words would be very common when pitching a nonfiction text, such a length reminds me of tennis lessons in my youth. In my experience, individual short stories dont tend to sell well on kindle compared to novels.

Average word count ranges from 70,000 to 100,000 words, although biographies of major celebrities or public figures can support a higher number. In other words no pun intended, tell your story in as many words as. Right now, when it comes to novellength word count, its all about 90,000 words. You wont get exact, but youre wondering whether 35k is reasonable, so you dont need exact. Chapter book this varies widely, depending on grade and reader level, usually starting at 4,000 words and 15,000 words max. But, most nonfiction publishers want to be sold the concept, and therefore be able to discuss the direction of the project, before you write the book. Publishers ultimately decide what length is proper for a particular book.

Calculate book page count using word count for book design. Make sure you have enough material and time to fulfill this obligation before you propose it. The length can vary greatly between genres, though. While average word length is 50,000 to 80,000 words, this genre has so much variety that word count depends on the book and its intended audience. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 words. Rowlings recordbreaking series began with two titles on the high end of that spectrum and finished with five that left the guidelines in the dust. You would be wise to come close to these suggested manuscript lengths. There is no reliable data from 2012 to make a viable yeartoyear comparison. With digital as well as print books available, the length of books varies. For a novel, i would recommend at least 50,000 words in length.

However, here are some guidelines you will find helpful. My picture books have ranged from 147 words to 1,400 words. Dont submit an outline for a book that contains less than 9 chapters. Picture book word count, and other rules that are meant to. The figure was found through looking at a number of books text stats, until brave new worlds 64,531 word count landed in the exact center of all books50% of books have fewer words and 50% of books have more words. Although science fiction and some other genres have been creeping up and can now exceed 400 pages 200,000 words. Novels intended for the adult market will be longer than those targeted at children and young adults. The average fiction book is about 80,000 to 100,000 words, which is about 246 to 307 ebook pages. I guess 50,000 is a short novel and some early novels before goes as low as 40,000 which can be considered to be a novella. Estimate your page count book designer linda parke. A good way to gauge appropriate length is to check out similar books for comparison. I asked agents elizabeth pomada and michael larsen of larsen pomada literary agency to add their thoughts to the subject.

A type of popular business book runs from 25,000 to 75,000 words. The art of the nonfiction book proposal writers relief. For most publishers, a book is novellength when its between 50,000 and 110,000 words. Nonfiction wordcounts sit between 70,000120,000 words. A fulllength nonfiction book usually contains 9 to 15 chapters of average length. One of my biggest problems as a publisher is having authors deliver more than was agreed to. Count the number of lines on each page to get the linesperpage. Specifically, an accessible nonfiction book might be anything between about 30,000 words and 50,000 words. Count up the total number of words on 10 random full lines from different. When talking about book length, its common to talk about word count rather than page count. The estimated length is calculated using the number of page turns on a kindle, using settings to closely represent a physical book. The length of your book will depend on a number of considerations. The average nonfiction book, if such a thing exists, runs about 50,000 to 75,000 words, but this can vary depending upon category. I heard 10,000 words can be accepted as an ebook at a short length at least for nonfiction.

The graph shows the average length of the top 100 bestsellers in each of the 30 main amazon kindle categories, measured in terms of the number of. In fiction, a book about between 50,000 and 80,000 words about 200 to 300 pages in paperback. For childrens fiction, the general rule is the younger the audience the shorter the book, and for ya novels the average is 50,00070,000 words. Book writing and publishing faq how long should my. Thats the level where publishers may suggest dividing a story into multiple volumes.